Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS for short) is a mainstream 3G wireless communications standard formulated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP for short). To meet growing rate requirements of users, a high-speed packet access (HSPA for short) technology is introduced into the UMTS and used for improving spectral efficiency, and includes high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA for short) introduced in Release 5 and high speed uplink packet access (HSUPA for short) introduced in Release 6.
In 3GPP Release 7, a continuous packet connectivity (CPC for short) feature is introduced, and the feature allows a user equipment (UE for short) to perform discontinuous transmission (discontinuous transmission of an uplink dedicated physical control channel (DPCCH for short)) and discontinuous reception (HS-SCCH for short). Discontinuous transmission (DTX for short) is one of characteristics of the CPC feature, that is, when no data is transmitted, sending of an uplink DPCCH is stopped, which may reduce uplink interference on a network side device, and in a discontinuous transmission period of the UE, to maintain power control and link synchronization, the UE may regularly send a DPCCH pulse.
In 3GPP Release 8, a dual cell high speed downlink packet access (DC-HSDPA for short) feature is introduced, allowing the UE to receive data on two downlink carriers; in 3GPP Release 9, a dual cell high speed uplink packet access (DC-HSUPA for short) feature is introduced, allowing the UE to send data on two uplink carriers; and the DC-HSUPA is bound to the DC-HSDPA, that is, when the DC-HSUPA is configured for the UE, the DC-HSDPA is also definitely configured for the UE at the same time.
If the UE is configured with the DTX, when the UE is configured with the DC-HSUPA, for a conventional method for sending DPCCHs of uplink and downlink primary carriers and second carriers, reference may be made to FIG. 1, including: establishing and synchronizing a downlink dedicated channel; when establishment of the downlink dedicated channel is completed, after waiting for an activation time, continuously sending, by the UE, a DPCCH for a period to perform uplink dedicated channel synchronization; and after completing, by the UE, the establishment and synchronization of the downlink dedicated channel, and the uplink dedicated channel synchronization, discontinuously sending, by the UE, the DPCCH according to configured DTX parameters, so as to reduce UE power consumption and uplink interference.
3GPP Release 12 is researching a feature of further enhanced uplink enhancement, where one technology is that when uplink multi-carrier transmission is performed, high data rate transmission is supported; and the technology is implemented by scheduling, by the network side device during data sending, the UE by using a high rise over thermal noise (ROT for short) on a second carrier on which the UE is scheduled. To further improve transmission efficiency on an uplink second carrier, it may be implemented by enhancing the DTX to reduce transmission frequency of the DPCCH on the uplink second carrier, that is, when no data is transmitted, the DPCCH is periodically and discontinuously sent on the uplink second carrier according to the DTX parameters, for the network side device to maintain uplink synchronization and power control.
In a process of further improving transmission efficiency on the uplink second carrier by enhancing the DTX, because the high RoT is used to schedule the UE, interference of another UE to the scheduling of the UE needs to be avoided. If a conventional manner of sending a DPCCH is used on the uplink second carrier of the UE, a moment at which the UE sends the DPCCH is determined according to a moment at which the downlink dedicated channel is successfully established, which is not known by the network side device, and after the downlink dedicated channel is established, the UE continuously sends a DPCCH for a period for uplink dedicated channel synchronization, causing it difficult for the network side device to schedule another UE by using the high RoT.